Small Blessings
by Broccoli-xxxx
Summary: They're both so tired. HermioneLuna femmeslash, post-DH. Mainly PG. Oneshot, now being continued as a chaptered story.
1. Small Blessings

_A/N: This story contains femmeslash, meaning two girls in love. It's basically PG13 stuff, but if the idea of this upsets you in any way, I'd recommend you don't read this. Otherwise, welcome to a world of small blessings. Enjoy.

* * *

_

Small Blessings

It starts just after the war ends.

Luna decides to crop her hair short, short like Hermione's temper is nowadays. She's always shouting at people, and funnily it's always Luna who stops her.

Her body aches from so many Cruciatuses and all she wants is to sleep.

She watches the Trio return from whatever they were doing in the Headmaster's office and smiles at Harry, bedraggled and thin, nods politely at Ronald with his shock of outgrown red hair and the cuts on his face still bleeding, and simply stares at Hermione with a _'let's get out of here'_ look that she's sure she'll use more often in the future.

They get out of there. The jubilant songs from the Great Hall echo down so many of the broken halls, with jagged shadows appearing like the ghosts that will no doubt appear in the months afterwards as the sun comes up, bright and shimmering with natural magic, shining on a new era and a new start for everyone.

It takes a while to find the right place to stop. But nevertheless they stop, in Firenze's teaching room, the walls broken in some places but the enchantment (magical and spiritual) remains strong. Luna immediately felt herself gravitate towards that familiar faux-forest floor and crumpled, flopping down with such enthusiasm that Hermione gasps.

"_Luna!_ Are you-?"

"I'm quite alright, Hermione. Sit. It's been a long time."

Hermione feels her heartstrings being tugged by this detached, mystical girl, and she crumples too, flopping down so that she can see Luna's face clearly. Her heart echoes in a melancholy tone, _such a long time_.

"I'm going to cut my hair shorter, to my chin. It'll keep the wrackspurts away better."

Hermione pauses for thought, studying that pale face and suddenly she sees it, her elfin features framed by spiky, gold locks. She smiles, and says,

"It'll suit you."

And Luna's heart sings, because now she knows Hermione is her friend.

* * *

Somehow, the Burrow hasn't been hit by angry spells and stands tall, lopsided as ever. The arrangements for Fred's funeral (not to mention Tonks, Remus, Colin, and the fifty-odd others who left that day) are put together there. Harry organizes Snape's funeral himself, along with a portrait for the headmaster's office.

Somehow people keep tumbling into the Burrow to stay – homes have been destroyed, people are being tracked down and the Order prefers the bustling Weasley den to Grimmauld Place, where they would be haunted by so many lost souls, gone forever to a place some soldiers wish they had gone to.

Hermione thinks a lot about her kiss with Ron and what it meant. It was nice, sure, and passionate no doubt, but she when she speaks with Ron nowadays, they're just friends. Perhaps it was nothing but platonic – it would explain the lack of romantic feeling she has towards him.

She asks Luna,

"What does it _mean_?"

Luna smiles, and takes Hermione's war-worn hands, tracing the lines on her palms with a long, pale finger.

"What would you like it to mean?"

Before Hermione can think, Luna goes on in her dreamy tone,

"I see love in your future. A love that defies logic…but it is not Ronald. No…nor Harry, Neville, Seamus, Lavender, Parvati, Dean, Cho…you cannot help yourself…you are just so full of love for all. Like me."

Hermione blushed. There had been times when she had loved each of those Luna had named; lingering touches on Harry's hand, smouldering glares at Cho and Lavender, and an undeniable attraction to the others. She stared at Luna, who stared resolutely back as the bushy-haired girl asked,

"Where is the answer? How do you know all of this?"

"You already _have_ your answers. It's the questions you need to be looking for."

And with that, Luna drifted off, leaving Hermione with nothing but Luna's sweet earthy scent to cling to.

* * *

Luna enjoyed being in the company of so many. The Burrow became a home for all, people chipping in money for groceries and the like, wrapping up warmer and cuddling together in the cold nights so the heating bill was not as high as it would be.

Seamus and Dean stop by many times, sometimes with Neville; though Neville comes and goes by himself most of the time. He's taller now, broader and more substantial – he's a _man_, at least as tall as Ron and a true hero like him and Harry too. Luna likes talking to Neville the most, because there's something so delightfully familiar about this clumsy, nervous, forgetful boy who has turned into a warrior almost all at once.

When she looks at him, she thinks he is a work of art. This war brought many bad things, but some small blessings – one of them being the transformation of Neville Longbottom into the commander of a great army, the one who roused the rebel yell of Dumbledore's Army at Hogwarts…someone Luna has the good fortune to call her friend.

One day, the sun comes out, strong and hot, and the current inhabitants of the Burrow (the remaining Weasleys, the lone Potter, Seamus, Dean, Lavender, Hermione, Cho, Lee, Parvati, Padma, and so many others) all flood out into the garden, so that the air is heavy with love and the ground is covered with people savouring the eccentric British weather, blessing Ottery St Catchpole with a spell of sun (it's nice to have a spell that only does good, except in the case of Ginny Weasley's burnt shoulders).

Luna takes a walk with Neville, hand in hand; there's nothing romantic about it, it's merely platonic, for they are best friends and yes, Luna does love him, though not in _that_ way. Neville's hand is so much bigger than the one she clutched in her fourth year, in between fighting Death Eaters at the Ministry, and she smiles up at him nostalgically, a smile which he returns tenfold.

"How have you been, Luna?" His question comes suddenly, and Luna gives him a dazzling smile.

"I've been great, Neville. Hermione and I are _friends_ now!"

Neville studies her face for a while, and smiles at what he knows is to come – that is, if Hermione decides to allow it.

* * *

Hermione Granger did not often find herself being confused.

She was not confused about her body – the war had built muscle to a certain extent, but going without food for such long stretches of time had made her thin and bizarrely stick-like, so she can count her ribs (24 in total, 4 just recovered from fractures) and the knobs of her spine.

The Burrow is too crowded nowadays for everyone to have a bath of their own, so they limit the amount they bathe for the while, and some people agree to share baths when they do bathe.

Hermione surprises herself by agreeing to this; usually she was a private person with regards to revealing herself to other people, even other girls, but now she could not find the energy to protest the practice.

She finds herself bathing with Luna the most. Sometimes it's Ginny, but mainly Luna. She assures herself that she has nothing to be ashamed of by preferring to bathe with a specific person, and feeling ridiculously (almost _impossibly_) comfortable around that person.

Hermione steps into the bathtub after Luna, settling herself at the opposite end of the bath and stretching out her legs next to Luna. The water is not as deep as usual because there are droughts across the wizarding community, so she can see the outline of Luna's body in the water, and her toes poking out from the water, their nails painted silver. Her own are painted, oddly, the same colour, which she found lying around the house one day and made use of, deciding it was time for a change.

Luna's hair is shorter now, about chin-length like she said, but as knotted as ever. Luna smiles at Hermione and says,

"Do you like it?"

Hermione does not even have to think before she replies,

"I love it."

She watches Luna's smile grow bigger and more dazzling than ever, and she presses her thumbs subconsciously into the gaps between her ribs to stop herself from giggling. She gives a smile back – a real smile, she is surprised to find, then offers to wash Luna's back. As she does, she can't help but notice that every knob of Luna's spine is visible, and her ribs stick out like the bars of a real cage - not just this twin set shielding her every breath from escape.

Hermione sighs, "We'll get better, won't we?"

Luna turns, grasping Hermione's face in her elfin hands, and kisses her chastely on the lips,

"Yes. We'll all get better, _eventually_."

* * *

It is repair day at the Burrow, and it's boiling.

Hermione and Luna help to re-paint the Burrow – Molly decides that a new coat of white paint would make the whole place look better. Ron and Harry are de-gnoming the yard, and Ginny is cleaning the windows, exchanging lovestruck glances with the Boy Who Lived as she scrubs.

Ron smiles at Hermione, and gestures her over.

Luna watches as Hermione resignedly picks her way across the overgrown garden to him, and can just hear their conversation on the breeze.

"Hermione, where are we going?"

"…well, um, R-Ron, we're…"

"…yes?"

"I….don't really _know_."

Luna can see, in the mildly distorted reflection of the window, Ron dipping his head to Hermione's and kissing her softly. As he draws back, there is sadness on both their faces.

"I can't say I didn't know."

"Know _what_?"

"Look, 'Mione, we're not meant to be. I guess…we were caught in the moment, or something, back at Hogwarts, or we had something and we lost it…"

"It's not that I don't love you. I do…just as a brother."

"I think I feel the same, too. It's pretty clear who you belong with, anyways."

"Ronald, _what_?"

But Ron merely smiled, and looked towards Luna, painting away like she didn't have hope rising in her body like a tide flowing back in from far-off lands. Hermione walked back in a daze, and uttered but one word,

"Luna."

Luna looks at her, and smiles mildly, "Nargles got you?"

Hermione dumbly nods yes, and picks up her paintbrush again, scaling the other precariously long ladder propped up against this jigsaw of a house with ease. Luna smiles; she's wearing a pair of her purple dungarees, the straps pulled up over her shoulders, with Luna's green t-shirt, too, underneath it. Her feet are bare, like Luna's, and she paints with renewed enthusiasm, a gloriously free smile on her face,

Luna looks down at herself. A pair of Ron's old black suit trousers – found in a pile of clean clothes, but given to her by Ron himself – hang low on her slim hips, and an already paint-splattered old white shirt of her mother's is buttoned wrongly over a blue vest. They look free and ramshackle and odd beyond words, but Luna smiles, because they look together.

* * *

Somehow Hermione and Luna's transition from friends to lovers is easy and seems like the most natural thing in the world when Luna pulls Hermione close one day and simply says, "Go slow."

Their kisses are tender and filled with curiosity and adventure, and Hermione can only taste _Luna_ – and Luna tastes of the sunlight that is strewn across the mattress and walls like shards of a broken looking glass.

Soon they lay down and their clothing seems to melt away, and here are two bodies so familiar to each other (Hermione knows every fading scar on Luna's body and Luna can count the vanishing bruises on Hermione's) that just seem to fit together.

Luna's hair flows like moonlight over the battered pillows on the makeshift bed Hermione calls her own (and now, Luna's) and Hermione's gentle, scarred hands trace fairy swirls and magical symbols on Luna's body, making her gasp and arch into Hermione's waiting embrace.

They make love for what seems like hours, and when they lie, entwined, together on Hermione's mattress in Ginny's room, everything seems still and perfect.

* * *

All the dead are buried by Christmas. Hermione and Luna don white, instead of black, to every funeral, and hold each other's hand in a death grip, tears flowing freely down both faces.

"Why white, and not black, Luna?" Hermione questions at first.

"They would not want us to mourn. They would want us to celebrate the glorious, textured lives they had – that's what my mother told me."

When they retreat back to the Burrow with the rest of the friends staying there, they do not go in straight away, but take off their restricting funeral shoes and walk in their soon-to-be laddered tights up to the hill overlooking the entirety of Ottery St. Catchpole, then clutch at each other desperately, not saying anything but savouring the fact that they live, they breathe and they love, and they are solid in each other's arms as they lie down on the hill and sing to one another inside their minds.

_Thank you_. The wind echoes their thoughts across the night skies.

* * *

Luna's house is rebuilt, and Xenophilius tells his daughter that if she would like to move back, she can.

Hermione bites her fingernails anxiously as Luna goes back to the Lovegood house that brought Luna up to being the magical girl she is, and frets that maybe things will change if she stays.

"He's my father," Luna had said. "He's important to me. But I don't know if I want to move back home. I don't know whether I should move somewhere new."

Hermione doesn't care where this 'somewhere new' is as long as she can go too.

"I might travel, for a while. I'm not sure," she says, offhandedly, as if she isn't stricken by the news that Luna is leaving.

Luna looks at her carefully, "Okay."

The artificial silence hangs heavy over their heads and they feel as if they cannot breathe.

* * *

Things do change, slightly. In the end, Hermione _does_ travel, and Luna travels too, following the opposite route around the world to Hermione, so they will meet again in the middle of their journey – Gotebourg, in Sweden, to search for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks – then complete the other half of their journey and decide where they should go from there.

They are not together, at least not physically. But somehow their hearts echo out to each other and they know exactly where the other is on the great big globe of metal they call their Earth. War had given them each different paths, but they had both endured the same horrors in time and were brought together by something that was there all along.

If war could bring such a wonderful thing to the surface, Hermione thought, as she kissed Luna for the last time before they set off in opposite directions, then separation could make this emotional magic endure.

The pair turned from each other, letting their entwined fingers slip apart.

They glanced back at one another with bittersweet smiles, then twin _pop!_s echoed and they vanished.

* * *

_A/N: Well, I'll let you know now that this is not the end. This is just a little taster for a fic I'm working on about the pair's individual travels, where they will talk through letters. It'll be based around their self-discoveries as they encounter new people and places, and their self-reliance strengthening while they're apart – I've been reading Emerson's essay on self-reliance and it fascinates me. The sequel may not be immediate, but it'll come and I hope you'll alert this if you like it so you can come back to read more about this ship. Do review, I know you're good at it. (:_


	2. Paris and Reykjavik

_A/N: Here I am, at last, back with new stuff for you. I warn you, updates will be sporadic; it's been a long time since I've written anything in my Potterverse, so it's taking me a while to get back into the swing of it. Each chapter will take place in two places, and will include a mixture of letters, and writing about where they actually are, and occasionally - as in this one - poems. I felt quite cheered by the two recent reviews for this, it's lovely people are still discovering it, and I hope that everyone will enjoy this after a two-year period of limbo. Welcome back to Small Blessings._

* * *

France is dry. The air is filled with cigarette smoke, there are sophisticated couples floating by, and it's just like in the stories her parents told her when she was young and not quite so jaded.

She met a young wizard, fresh out of Beauxbatons, who could use wandless magic, though only a little. She'd been lodging in a spare room in his house – towering and empty, it belonged to his parents, who were almost always absent.

Perhaps it was being alone so much that made Gerard create his own shortcuts.

"C'est difficile," he admits, and she watches as he frowns, staring at his palm, then murmured, "Lumos."

Light began to well in his palm, like water flowing from a tap, until it floated in a sphere, linked to his hand by a thin chain of light. On the ceiling above, she could see the shadow of his hand, and the light above it, emitting waving patterns of warmth and magic.

Hermione blinked, and was surprised when she felt wetness on her cheeks.

* * *

The cold never did bother her very much.

She meditates, in the mornings, atop a small hill just outside of Reykjavik. The ground is thick with frost and crunches underfoot, and she's wearing only a light cotton dress, but she sits down anyways, and turns to the south-east, using a compass to place it.

The morning air is chill but sings through her thin bones, like a voice carrying over the seas. She can feel Hermione in the air, her magic pulsing even now.

When she awakens from her meditation, she is inside with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She has been carried in by Sven, who chides her in a beautiful, musical voice, like windchimes and sadness.

"You were turning blue out there."

And Luna sighed, and smiled, thinking about how blue was Hermione's favourite colour.

* * *

_Hermione,_

_Beginning this letter was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Finding the words to start with was near-impossible – how can I accurately show a summation of how I feel about you? About us?_

_With your name. It was always going to be with your name. After the war it's the only name I want to hear anymore. Every day when we were helping clear the wreckage of our school, hearing your name on another's lips was some kind of quiet music to me. A promise of continuation; the relief that you too were alive hit me every time I heard it._

_Hermione, I'm in Iceland. Of course, you probably know that. Well, you definitely do – you plotted out this journey of ours. We're meant to find the answer to our futures this year, aren't we?_

_The scenery here sparkles with a sort-of magic; I have met a few witches and wizards, not many, but it's hard to tell here who has magic and who doesn't. I suppose that just shows how crazy the idea of Blood Status was. Magic can't be seen in a person's blood, or in their family. Here everyone is peaceful and calm, living their peaceful, calm lives despite the fact that I can see that the war stretched even here._

_There are refugees here, you see. Far more wizards and witches than there ordinarily are. They hide themselves well – I've only met about 10, and that was their choice – but I can taste the remnants of spells in the air._

_You can see magic in a person's eyes, though. It burns brighter in yours than in anyone else's I've ever seen._

_It is cold here, but I don't mind – I'm enjoying the benefits of the short hair. Not having quite so much hair makes me feel purer. I like the way the wind whistles through my layers of clothes, tosses my hair about; almost makes me feel as though the war polluted me, and here I am, cleansing myself of darkness before I see you again._

_My father has written to me, hoping I am well. He says he hopes you're well too; Hermione, I think he is quite jealous of what you have caused in me. He feels as though he is losing his little girl – he isn't, of course, he never could – and it worries him to see me so…attached to you. He hasn't felt that way towards anyone since Mum._

_Have you visited your parents yet, Hermione? I know you're headed to Australia before I am, but you didn't mention whether you were going to see them. I know you must be worried still; they haven't caught all of the Death Eaters just yet, you don't want to put them in any danger until you're certain they're alright._

_They will be safe if they are with you, that much I know. I never felt safer than when I knew you were around._

_I am trying to pretend I'm not scared about the future, but it's not quite working. I'm trying to find my answer (though to what question, I'm not sure), and the best I can come up with is 'Hermione'._

_They have a saying here, and I'm going to write it in Icelandic so that you can feel the beauty of the words:_

**'_A saga er eini helmingur told ef there er eini einn hlið nútíminn.'_**

_'A story is only half told if there is only one half presented'. Remember that, Hermione, and think of me._

_Yours,_

_Luna_

_P.S Enclosed is a wooly hat I bought for you, for when you get to the colder parts of the world. I hope you like it._

_

* * *

_

_Luna,_

_I've spent a long time wondering how to start my letter, too. You know me; I'm not very good at being romantic, or showing how I feel. You know me. It seems we reached the same conclusion, though – the only way to start a letter to you that I felt was right, was to just put your name. Simple, to the point._

_Thank you. For the hat, for the letter. I miss you, and they made being away from you somewhat less lonely._

_As you know, I've started off with Paris. Or Paname, as I've heard people our age calling it. You'll like it here – I know your mother taught you French, and if I could get by on mine – I haven't spoken it in a while, I was taught it at Muggle school – then I'm sure you'll do fine._

_I'm staying in a small hotel just out of the city centre, and while I love how I feel as if I've lived here for an age, these hotel walls are closing in on me. Though I suppose there are worse walls to be closed in by – the architecture here is beautiful. The little Muggle girl in me wants to take obscene amounts of photos, with my thumb over a corner of the lense._

_I'm trying my hardest to give you an idea of how lovely this city really is, but I can't form it into words._

_What I like is that here, I'm just a girl. I'm not a witch, a know-it-all or a lesbian. Here I can be anonymous, and after everything, I think that that is what I like the most. I love Harry and Ron, but I don't know how to cope with the fame. This Golden Trio business is very tiring, and even though the war got here, too – some buildings are damaged, but they've magicked them so that Muggles can't tell – thankfully people don't seem to know me. Or, they can tell I'm trying to hide, and they let me._

_At night, when I look out from my window, and see the whole city illuminated with blinding lights, and watch it float out into the ether, somehow it reminds me of you._

_Seeing your name on the same piece of paper as mine helps me kid myself that you're right here with me._

_Hermione

* * *

_

She wakes up the morning after she sent her letter to find an owl perched at her window, a small slip of paper rolled around its ankle. Hermione untied it, paid the owl, and sent it on its way, unraveling the paper and reading.

_the sun is constant  
on this island of light.  
i see your face on my eyelids  
as i surface from  
the blackness  
of sleep._

_they speak quickly here.  
urgently. reminds me of you;  
of haphazard painting  
and old books, longing to be  
read. you read them  
every last one._

_they ask if i want wine with dinner.  
neitun , þakka þú__. i need no  
wine but that which you give me,  
hermione - a name that  
lingers, semi-precious,  
on my lips._

_i tremble at nights  
is it cold where you are?  
paris is warm i know, though  
not  
as warm as  
you._

She shuddered, by habit. It was coming to night-time in Paris, the colours of the day subdued and diffused by ozone. Hermione could smell it in the air – the pollution, the desperation.

The lights outside her window are bright, harsh – she missed the calm and serenity of home, the peacefulness of love and Luna.

* * *

Outside, the landscape felt wider and colder than ever before to Luna – the bustle of London is a faint memory, compared to the quiet goings on of Reykjavik. The land of ice threatens to freeze her to the bone, but nothing comes. No cold – only fire, coursing through her bones.

She held Hermione's letter to her heart, keeping her voice circulating through her mind, keeping the memory of their quiet life alive. Soon, she thinks. Soon.

* * *

_A/N: 'neitun, __þakka þú' means 'no, thank you' in Icelandic._


	3. New York and Tibet

_A/N: Here is another chapter for you lovely people. I want to dedicate it to everyone who came back after all this time, and one person who messaged me. You know who you are.  
You are all the best readers any teenage girl with a lot on her mind could want.  
_

* * *

_New York I love you, but you're bringing me down._

The song sings through her bones as she lets the vibrations of the city get to her heart. There's something beautiful and sad about this canyon of architecture, this valley of the manmade; people go through their days without taking much notice of each other, and it's so different from the close-knit community she's grown accustomed to that she can't help but feel a little lost.

"Excuse me? Are you Hermione Granger?" New Jersey accent awakens her from the view through the coffee-shop window; brings her back to the cup of coffee smarting her hand with its heat, where she clasps it loosely; back to soulful eyes and tattooed skin.

She studies him quickly; takes in the short blonde buzz cut, the matching stubble, the square jaw. She can see tattoos peeking out onto his neck, behind the scarf he's wearing. It's springtime in NY, and so there's still a slight chill in the air.

She expects him to look expectant, and yet his blue eyes are smiling at her, and his expression is patient and kind.

"I'm Hermione Granger, yes," she supplies, offering her coffee-warmed hand to him. He shakes it with one as warm, from being shoved into his jacket pocket.

"It's an honour to meet you, really. I didn't mean to disturb you, but I just wanted to say thank you, and could I buy you a drink?"

It was hard to say yes, but even harder to say no. The city would swallow her whole if she didn't talk to someone.

* * *

_Luna,_

_New York is so big, and I'm so small. I remember before the war how well-fed we all were, how healthy we looked. Nowadays I look in the mirror and wonder where the rest of me went._

_It will take a while for our bodies to return to normal, I know. But it's still strange seeing all these angles and points on myself; I wish you were here. You always made me feel better about being me.  
_

_A guy bought me a drink today – a Butterbeer in a local wizarding place, you know how I don't like Firewhiskey much. I was surprised people here actually knew who I am; I'd prepared myself for a certain amount of fame but as far as I know the war never really reached as far as the USA._

_I needed the company, more than anything. I miss you, you see. If I was someone else I would have been flattered that a good-looking guy like him bought me a drink; I'm not someone else, though. His jaw was too square for me - I ended up telling him all about you._

_This city really is incredible, though. I love the variety, the vibrant culture they've got here. It's like London times one hundred. Someday we'll have to come back here together, and just fade into the background – I'm doing that now, but I think it would be a lot less lonely with you._

_I'm sending this letter with photos of me being a tourist at all the landmarks here – Muggle photographs, mind, couldn't exactly get a passerby to take a wizarding photo and not freak out when the photos started moving. Hope that's okay._

_Hermione

* * *

_

She's lucky she Apparated into Tibet; it's so difficult to get in legally, she would have been stuck at the border for months.

The first thing she notices is how very high up it is. She notices this through violent altitude sickness. She persevered, climbing higher through the hills, until she reached a temple. The monks there took pity on her, coached her back to health.

The mountain air eventually became soothing. It's hot in Tibet, but cool in the mountains. She meditates daily with the orange-robed monks, trying to find her centre again in her own self-imposed bubble of loneliness.

At one point she comes to a sudden realization that Hermione might be her centre - her rock, solid and secure. After that she spends her meditations trying to scour the earth with her mind, trying to pick out the one spark of indomitable energy and consciousness, that familiar glowing woman. She finds her one day, and manages never to lose her again. It's cheating, almost; seeking her out every day when they'd promised each other distance. But the lack of _words_, the lack of _presence_; that alone is more than enough distance.

Photos arrive with a letter from her, one day. Luna reads the letter hungrily, clasping it with both hands, eyes drinking in Hermione.

One of the monks asks to see the pictures, and laughs at Hermione posing at New York landmarks. Luna keeps rereading the letter.

* * *

_Hermione,_

_I am in the wonderful country of Tibet, staying in a temple with some lovely Buddhist monks. At first the altitude sickness was awful, but now I rather feel better than before._

_It's amazing how many places are so different to each other on this one small planet, at least to me. I suppose I've been spending more time away from people than you have been, and yet I feel more connected than ever to everything._

_I think sometimes, crowds can cloud your perceptions of yourself. I know I can't think when there are so many people around._

_I feel so sad that a country like this is in such trouble. I wish there was more to be done – unfortunately, this is a Muggle problem, and we cannot interfere. It's funny to think of all the things we lose when we gain magic. We have to be so careful, Hermione, to not reveal ourselves fully._

_I wish this letter wasn't so brief. It's hard to find the words to say when you spend your days in silence.  
_

_I miss you, and the way you saw all of me at once. Nowadays when I meditate I search the earth for you; it's amazing how I always manage to find you again._

_Luna

* * *

_

Hermione receives Luna's letter surprisingly quickly. The apartment building she's staying at in Battery Park is stale and full of tourists today, as the temperature climbs up to 100, so she's stayed in, with the windows wide open.

There is no air con in the apartment, but reading Luna's letter is as good as.

That night, she sits on the sticky laminate floor of her kitchen – well, kitchenette, but kitchens always make her feel more grounded – and faces east. Palms turned upwards on her crossed legs, she closes her eyes, and focuses on her breathing.

Slowly the noises of New York fade; the smell of traffic disappears; the cold, clammy plastic of the floor vanishes from beneath her. She is ether, darkness; _she is Hermione_.

And somewhere in the distance is a small glowing light, faintly blue but with pink tinging its edges. And Hermione knows, deep in her heart, that this is Luna.

* * *

_A/N: More poetry next time; it was lovely how many of you commented on it last time._


End file.
